A computing platform can be simply defined as a place to launch application software. A computing platform can include a hardware architecture and a software framework (including application frameworks) designed to allow application software to run. The computing platform provides a software developer certainty that logic code (or an application) will run consistently on any of a variety of systems as long as they support the computing platform. Logic code includes byte code, source code, and machine code.
Applications running on a computing platform may interact or exchange data with other computing elements or entities (e.g., databases, other applications, other computing platforms or systems, etc.) via specific programmed data connections. A data connection to and from an application may be of a specific connectivity type (e.g., HTTP, Web Services, OData/REST, OData/HTTP, SAP RFC, SAP ALE, etc.). Each specific data connection type may have its own programming model (e.g., for configuration, runtime, monitoring, addressing aspects, error handling, etc.).
In practice, applications running on a computing platform can use diverse connectivity types and programming models. The diversity or variety in connectivity types and programming models can add complexity to application integration and connectivity administration on the computing platform.
A particular data connection type for an application may be selected by an application developer based, for example, on consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of the particular connectivity type. The incoming data coming in via a data connection of one connectivity type is mostly processed within the application by entities of the same connectivity type (e.g., incoming RFC data is often pre-processed in a receiving RFC function module). As a consequence, application logic has to be rewritten by application developers each time a new or additional data connection type is to be supported by the application. Several application programming interfaces (APIs), for example, APIs for receiving data and containing at least parts of the business logic) may have to be rewritten to be kept up to date.
Computing platform frameworks with a view to simplify application integration and connectivity administration should be considered.